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The Minister for Community and Social Care (Alistair Burt) spoke in Parliament on 24 May 2016 a few days before he silver tongued the BDA conference with similar words after which I wrote, “Much of his speech we have heard before and it did little to convince me that (NHS) dentistry is anything other than an irregular irritation in the big picture of health. There will be no more funding in the foreseeable future, no matter what sort of contract is produced, be prepared to deliver it with a tighter belt.”

Hansard has the full transcript of May 24th here but I have selected the phrases (reminiscent of Bullshit Bingo) that chimed with me, thinking back to his speech in Manchester.

We want to empower primary care health professionals to take up opportunities to embrace new ways of working with other health professionals to transform the quality of care that they provide to patients and the public. In particular, we want to free up pharmacists to spend more time delivering clinical and public health services to patients and the public in a range of settings.

I have seen at first hand the fantastic work that pharmacists are doing from within community pharmacies, such as in healthy living pharmacies and other settings, and colleagues have also paid tribute to that work. Pharmacy-led services, such as the recently recommissioned community pharmacy seasonal influenza vaccination programme, can help to relieve pressure on GPs and A&E departments……

The fund is set to rise by an additional £20 million a year. By 2020-21, we will have invested £300 million in addition to the £31 million that NHS England is investing in funding, recruiting and employing clinical pharmacists to work alongside GPs to ease current pressures in general practice and improve patient safety.

The chief pharmaceutical officer, has commissioned an independent review of community pharmacy clinical services to make recommendations on future models for commissioning pharmacy-led clinical services. Clinical pharmacists will offer complementary skills to GPs, giving patients access to a multi-disciplinary skill set, and helping GPs manage the demands on their time and provide a better experience for patients. This is a great opportunity for pharmacists wanting to make better use of their clinical skills and develop them further.

Sweet words indeed, after Alister Burt, who seemed to me to be a pragmatic and likeable (unlike his boss Mr Hunt) moved to the back benches post Brexit vote, the words are transformed into reality.

The Department of Health said it wanted to reduce the £2.8bn a year pharmacy bill by more than £200m over the next two years. …It has been suggested cuts on this scale could lead to up to 3,000 of the 11,700 pharmacies being closed. Currently, the average pharmacy receives £220,000 a year from the NHS. This accounts for between 80% and 90% of their income and includes a flat rate of £25,000, which nearly all pharmacies receive. The changes being announced scrap that and put much more emphasis on performance-related funding, with ministers understood to see the current system as outdated and inefficient…

I repeat….There will be no more funding …. no matter what sort of contract is produced, be prepare to deliver it with a tighter belt.